Video games today have changed the last generation of youth in many ways. Socially, does it help or hurt this generation? It’s nearly impossible to say but what you can do is review the pros and cons. Since 1972 video games have been changing drastically. Instead of two lines and a ball there are game systems that require movement like the Wii. A big part of Wii Fit’s sales pitch was directed at women. With their tagline “How will it move you?” it didn’t leave a question in anyone’s mind as to what the positives were. You get to work out in the comfort of your own home and be thoroughly entertained the entire time. Then you have Mortal combat on the PlayStation console that has caused people to look at the emergence of strong violent themes in games. After a study of 227 college kids the American Psychological Association (APA) found that ‘“Students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior," said lead author Anderson, of Iowa State University. "We also found that amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in college."’ Now this is a small sample to base all your opinions on but looking at all sides of the spectrum is the only way to get a more credible opinion.
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I find it very interesting that the Wii was targeted towards women, for it seems to me that men are much more interested in video games than women. I wonder if there is any significance to this speculation.
ReplyDeleteThe Wii is pretty firmly targeted at people who would not otherwise be interested in video games. They've found a pretty huge untapped market, advertising to non-gamers. That's part of the reason why most of my old friends who are still gamers hate the Wii so much.
ReplyDeleteIt seems pretty easy, to me, to assume that playing lots of violent video games as a kid desensitizes one to the idea that violence is an option, or is acceptable -- you grow up seeing it, even simulated, and your brain still gets used to the idea.
Ya, when I was looking at advertisements for the Wii it's definately aimed towards a more broad demographic. They are successful because of those strategies mostly because their system is not up to the standards of PS3 or Xbox 360 (I guess it's debatable but that's my opinion). As I've been reading I've been going back and forth on what I want to focus on in this topic. Everythin I read falls under one of two categories. It's either violence in video games or are video games addicting. I think the most beneficial view to go about this is focus on are video games addicting and how it affects a gamers social life (if he's got one) and designate maybe 20% to the violence debate.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of investigating how games affect people's social lives. For example, I have a friend who, among other reasons, broke up with her boyfriend because he got sucked into World of Warcraft. He was spending all his time in front of the computer instead of doing stuff she liked to do like go running, camping, hiking, biking, watching movies, going dancing, going to parties and meeting people, going out to dinner, checking out a poetry reading, travellng...the list goes on. It became a situation where he would make a decision to stay in and play WOW instead of spending time with her.
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